Milbury to Ovechkin: "Act like a man, for God's sake!"

If Mike Milbury ever admired Alex Ovechkin, it's a safe bet that he's long since allowed his fan club membership to lapse.

The bombastic NBC Sports Network analyst brought his lunchpail to the rink every day as a player, so he's never had much patience for athletes who appear to get something less than the maximum out of their prodigious natural talents.

Ovechkin has made himself a frequent, and easy, target of Milbury's wrath over the past couple of seasons. But after a very rough start to 2013, he's gotten his game back on the right track over the past few games. Not yet up to his previous standard, but you could see the effort, the beginning of a turnaround.

That should have been enough to keep him out of Milbury's crosshairs during tonight's broadcast of the Caps/Flyers tilt. But Ovechkin basically loaded both barrels for Mad Mike with a stupefyingly soft performance through two periods.